Watching recent events unfold at the U.S. Air Force Academy is like having front row seats to a slow-motion train wreck. The Air Force Academy’s new superintendent, Lt. Gen. Tony D. Bauernfeind, arrived in August of 2024 and immediately embarked on his own personal shock and awe campaign.
According to reports from The Colorado Springs Gazette and other news outlets, Bauernfeind is planning on reinventing the Air Force Academy in the spitting image of the Special Operations Command in Florida, which he just left. This small, specialized unit represents only about 6% of the regular Air Force.
The first phase of this campaign is a massive reduction in the number of civilian faculty. Behind the scenes, a plan is being implemented to replace these civilians with active-duty officers who have little or no teaching experience. The general predicts that this would somehow increase the number of cadets wanting to attend pilot training. It would be amazing if senior Air Force leaders are actually on board with the idea of reassigning mission-ready pilots to teach entry-level academic classes at the Academy.
Winning wars on the battlefields of the future is increasingly dependent on developing entirely new weapons and technologies. The current focus is on dominating space (via the newly created Space Command), computer cyberwarfare, and the use of less expensive force multipliers, such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles that don’t need pilots at all — to name just a few. It’s not just about traditional air power anymore.
Despite all this, the general seems to have found a receptive ear in the “cut twice and measure later” bazaar of ideas that is alive and well in the nation’s capital. Selling a plan to reinvent the Academy as a solution to the ongoing pilot shortage is exactly the kind of quick fix that plays well in D.C. when politically expedient.
Unfortunately for him, this kind of high-level top cover can be remarkably fickle and quickly shift allegiances when risky programs like this don’t bear fruit immediately or they become an unexpected political liability.
With minimal institutional support, zero buy-in from Academy graduates intent on protecting the institution, and no real backing from the Colorado Springs community at large, one really must wonder if his vision is just a house of cards.
Blunting the “tip of the spear” by stealing away busy warfighters from operational units already stretched thin seems like a monumental waste. Do we really want to start pulling flyers out of the cockpit to teach Chemistry 101?
If reducing spending is your thing, know that Gen. Bauernfeind’s plan will cost more than what is traditionally spent on the faculty. An unbiased study by the highly regarded RAND Corporation bears this out, concluding that we would save money by hiring more civilian educators, not the other way around!
The Academy has always attracted the best and brightest students from around the nation. Now, many parents are questioning whether or not they should encourage their sons and daughters to apply at all. They are rightfully concerned about the foundational changes being hammered through. This is not hyperbole – the number of qualified students accepting an offer to attend the Air Force Academy for the Class of 2029 has already decreased significantly compared to prior years, according to internal Air Force memos.
It certainly did not escape notice when the word “educate” was unceremoniously dropped from the Air Force Academy Mission Statement this year. This thoroughly vetted document has always embodied the deeply held core values of the Academy. So now, out of the blue, educating our future Air Force leaders is no longer even a core value?
Presently, only the Air Force Academy is being targeted for such crippling cuts. West Point and Annapolis are not yet on the political chopping block. If the Air Force Academy falls, it’s likely that the other service academies will quickly suffer the same fate.
If we’ve learned anything from the devastating wildfires in California and Colorado, it’s that what we value most can be destroyed in a fraction of the time it took to build.
Kent Murphy, M.D., is a head and neck surgeon and a retired Colonel in the U.S. Air Force. He practiced at the Air Force Academy hospital for almost 15 years. He graduated from the Academy in 1980 ( the first class to admit women). He remains very closely involved with the academic mission of the AFA, serving as a volunteer civilian premedical advisor for the past 6 years.
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